Page 21 - Seven Laws of Success

And the person who does put this all-important seventh law last is very probably dooming his life to failure at the end.
Why of First Importance
Look again at the very first Law, as it has been listed here. It is not merely choosing a goal – any goal. It is setting as one's life-aim the right goal.
The "successful" of this world all had goals. But their goals led to material ends. They sought happiness in vanity, pride of status, material acquisitions, physical activities and pursuits. They sought the approbation of people. But people are human, and their lives are temporary. Material objects, too, are not enduring, but wax old until consigned to disuse.
The main goals of those supposed to be successful in the world usually are two: Vanity – desire for status; and money with the material things it will buy. But happiness is not material, and money is not its source. Vanity, as Solomon observed is like a striving after wind!
These men I have mentioned made money. Their bank accounts may have been full, but their lives were empty. When they acquired money, it never satisfied, and always they wanted more. These monetary victories, these material acquisitions, gave, of course, a thrill of satisfaction – but it never lasted!
This life-long struggle – this constant striving "after wind" – striving after false values – left in its wake a trail of fears and worries, apprehensions, disappointments, heartaches, troubled consciences, discontent, empty lives, frustrations – and finally, DEATH!
Oh yes, of course there were pleasures, moments of excitement, periods of enjoyment. There were occasional thrills, temporary sensations of delight. But always they were followed by periods of depression. Always a gnawing inner soul-hunger returned. This in turn drove them to seek satisfaction in the thousand-and-one events in the world's whirl of material pleasures and pastimes. Yet these never filled the void. They never satisfied the real inner hunger.
These people probably didn't realize it, but the hunger was spiritual. And spiritual hunger is never satisfied by material food!
The "successful" of this world applied six of the success laws. But they left GOD out of the picture, and the happiness of real success out of their lives.
It seems almost no one, today, realizes HOW – and WHY – we were made. WHAT we humans are, and WHY we are. Why should we live in ignorance of these basics of knowledge?
Two basic and vital facts are overlooked:
1. While man was made a material being, of the dust of the ground, sustained by eating material food and drinking material water, he was made also to need spiritual food, and to drink of the "living water" of God's Spirit. Without these spiritual needs man cannot be truly and continually happy. Nothing else really satisfies.